


the new wind on your side

by theformerone



Category: Naruto
Genre: Adoption, Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Trauma, F/F, Heavy Angst, M/M, Orochimaru was a huge POS, Post Fourth Shinobi World War, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, War Orphans, dig up sandaime and kill him again, this is nOT mako's fault but i'm blaming her anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-03-27 03:56:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13872597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theformerone/pseuds/theformerone
Summary: After the war, a little girl named Yona dies on the border between Sound and Fire Country. She is one of eighty-one children, left to rot in the caverns of Oto after Orochimaru and Kabuto left them there.Sakura, Ino, Sasuke, and their team are sent to retrieve the rest of them.





	1. Chapter 1

The Fourth War has been over two years, and the world stutters itself back onto its feet. Which of course means that something must inevitably go terribly wrong.

While the rebuilding efforts are happening, Naruto and Chouji (the two  _worst_ people for this to happen to) stumble across an emaciated child at the border of Fire and Sound. 

She is no older than ten years old and is delirious with hunger. Her feet are bloody from walking. When they ask her where she comes from, she tells them that she is of Oto. That she is the first one to try to escape, and that the rest are back in the village proper. She tells them that they have been out of food for weeks, that they had been abandoned once the war began in full swing. That she was one of the strongest of them, and had left to find help.

She dies of exhaustion shortly thereafter. Her name was Yona. She is the first casualty of the peaceful era they had all hoped for after the Fourth War. 

They bury her in the Orphan's Cemetery in Konoha. 

* * *

Naruto is frothing at the mouth to do something about the children left behind in Oto. Chouji is in much the same state. 

Kakashi is the Rokudaime, and he of all people understands that the Sandaime was not very good at his job. Blind favoritism allowed Orochimaru to more or less roam freely in the world without consequence. The fact that there were any number of dying children, the products of his experiments, dying alone in his hidden village was a direct result of the Sandaime's inaction. 

Which made it Konohagakure's fault. 

Kakashi is not Sarutobi Hiruzen. When he recognizes a problem -regardless of his emotional attachment- he seeks to correct it. Orochimaru had not discriminated while he experimented on Konoha children; there was an opportunity that the dying children left in his village were by rights, citizens of Fire Country. 

And more than that, they were children. 

Before Kakashi can even take the proposal to the Elder's Council (a tradition that will assuredly die once Mitokado and Utatane did), Naruto singlehandedly (pun absolutely intended), creates a big fuss about it to the public. 

"This is the village that murdered the Uchiha Clan!" he bellows to a crowd of gathered shinobi and civilians. "This is the village that allowed Hyūga Hizashi to be killed to satisfy a foreign government! Will we atone for our sins by saving these dying children? Or will we add to them by turning a blind eye? Will we let Yona-chan die in vain? Or will we rescue her brothers and sisters?"

After that, Kakashi would probably get stoned in the streets if he didn't let a group go retrieve the remaining orphans. He may be a war hero twice over in his own right, but Naruto's got one thing he sorely lacks: charisma. 

The little girl called Yona, her name becomes a rallying cry in the streets. Utatane and Mitokado try to delay making a decision for as long as they can, but Naruto starts circulating petitions. He's got the Kazekage on his side, the single remaining Uchiha, the Nara and Yamanaka heirs; all of them children orphaned by the war. All of them with incredible sway over the village and in international politics.  

Naruto was going to make a  _devastatingly_ effective politician.

* * *

Sakura is chosen to go to assess the physical health of the children, as well as to retrieve whatever may remain of Orochimaru's research. Ino is there to assess the mental health of the children, and to determine which can or cannot (will or will not) be brought back to the village. And while two kunoichi leading a squad is a sign to any shinobi that danger is ahead, the sight of a married couple usually eases some tension. 

Married couples are terrifying on the battlefield, and so are kunoichi. Yet, there is a measure of trust that seeing two people wearing matching rose gold bands inspires. It means the couple has lived long enough to find each other, and that any instance of one being kidnapped or used as a weapon against the other has failed. It's confusing for any shinobi. But for children that had been taken by Orochimaru, experimented upon by him, two soft looking married women would be a welcome sight. 

Sasuke comes because he is respected in Oto; if those who remain in the little village put up any fuss, the sight of Sasuke is likely to calm them. He's let out of his prison to go on this mission as a way to knock down years on his sentence. It's a bargain that doesn't really need to be made; if Naruto had asked him personally, Sasuke would have gone. As it is, Sasuke already knows that Naruto wants him to go, so he does. 

Sakura and Ino hand pick a small number of extra medic and psych nin, all effective in their area of expertise as well as in combat. They leave for Oto as soon as their teams are amassed. 

The state of the children is - despairing to say the least. 

When they arrive in the village, many of them are nowhere to be found. The shinobi must loudly telegraph their movements, allowing their footfalls to come loudly to keep themselves from startling the children. 

When no one is to be found within the village proper, Sasuke leads the team down into Orochimaru's base of operations. The air is cool and stale inside, speaking of several pathways out. The stench of urine and feces gets stronger the lower they dive, and every once in a while, the sharp tang of blood mingles with it. There are whispers occasionally, and the sound of running feet. The shinobi are loud so that the children know they are there. It appears they are loud enough.

Sasuke deflects the first syringe with his own kunai, and when the nearly feral child erupts from the darkness to attack him, he's almost gentle as he disarms the boy. He's hissing, spitting, screaming with rage, damn near frothing at the mouth. 

"I won't let you hurt them!" he shrieks, and Ino's heart breaks. "I won't let you touch them!"

Sasuke holds the writhing, angry child back from hurting himself. The boy bucks wildly until Sasuke peers down at him with a bright red eye. The boy stills immediately. Ino has half a mind to march up to the idiot and demand why he's using a Sharingan genjutsu on the boy, but Sakura puts out an arm that keeps Ino back. 

"Sasuke-sama," the boy whimpers. Tears well up in his eyes. Sasuke drops the boy's arms, and the child throws himself at Sasuke, hugging him fiercely. "Sasuke-sama!"

"Chitose," Sasuke says, voice cool and low, peering down at the boy whose grasp is bony and desperate. "Where are the others?"

Chitose looks from Sasuke to the group assembled behind him, and Ino puts on her kindest expression. The boy is wily, probably no older than fourteen, and he looks like his wild attack on Sasuke was probably the most strength he's mustered up in ages. 

"They're medical shinobi from Konohagakure," Sasuke explains. "We found Yona, and we're here to take all of you away from here."

Chitose visibly flinches at the mention of Yona; Ino wonders how close they were. The boy doesn't let go of Sasuke, but he does edge just a little bit behind him, wary of the contingent wearing the Konoha insignia so proudly. 

"Chitose." 

Sasuke's voice is stern now, and the boy ducks his head to avoid the accompanying gaze. 

"Stop that, Sasuke-kun," Sakura says. "You're frightening him."

Sakura steps forward away from their group and slowly towards Sasuke and the cowering boy. Chitose hides a little behind Sasuke, behind his navy cloak. Sakura gets down to her knees a little bit in front of him, allowing Sasuke's body to act as a shield. 

"Hello, Chitose-kun," she says lightly. "I'm Sakura. Sasuke-kun is so mean, isn't he? I've known him since we were twelve, and he's always had a bad attitude."

Chitose peers at Ino's wife, hesitant to agree with her but enamored by her relationship to the man he clearly sees as his superior. 

"I like your name, Chitose-kun. It means the strength of a thousand, right?" Sakura continues. She points her finger at the purple diamond on her forehead. "This seal gives me the strength of a hundred, so if we ever had an arm wrestling competition, you'd probably beat me, huh?"

Chitose's eyes flicker from Sakura's forehead to her green gaze, and though he is still tense, curiosity is beginning to win. He feels safe, Ino knows. Sakura is just close enough and Sasuke is a human shield. She feels proud of her wife, for acting so quickly and for understanding what this boy needs. 

"I know you guys probably don't trust medical shinobi," Sakura says, voice going soft.

The boy tenses up again and shakes his head quickly.

"But we really are here to help you. Your friend Yona was very brave, and our Rokudaime Hokage knows you all have been really brave, too. And he sent us to help. Will you let us, Chitose-kun?"

The boy looks from Sakura to Sasuke, who nods only once. Then, Chitose looks back at Sakura and nods again. 

"This way," he says with a trembling voice. 

He leads them further down, until they are in the bowels of a place deep within the earth. Ino feels chilled to her core, knowing that these children have probably not felt sunlight on their skin in quite some time. 

They come upon a group of kids around Chitose's age, all wild eyed and angry looking, wielding bits of glass or stone, prepared to fight whoever's come to take them away. They're all as thin as Chitose, all as haggard and hungry and sick looking.

When they see Sasuke, they drop their weapons. Their eyes shine bright, misting over with tears. Ino has to wonder why exactly they are so happy to see him; Sasuke never caught her as the type to like kids overmuch, and he's his usual gruff self with them. There's no tenderness or soft words to be had, but the children don't seem to care at all. 

They look at Sasuke like he's the one singlehandedly saving them all. They vie for his attention like flowers desperate for the sun.

Ino looks to Sakura with a smirk on her face and asks, "Did we ever look at him like that?"

Sakura visibly suppresses a shudder, and Ino hides a laugh behind her hand. 

"This way, Sasuke-sama," Chitose says, tugging at Sasuke's cloak. He looks from him to Sakura, and adds shyly, "Sakura-san."

He leads them down a number of hallways, each of them lined with cold metal bars and the sound of weeping or murmuring or silence. It makes Ino's stomach turn. The stink of shit and blood and disease is stronger down here, much stronger than it was on the upper levels. Even though Sakura is the head medic for this mission, Ino wants to coat her hands in green right now and start fixing what she sees. 

The rest of the children are found huddled up in their cells. They quickly realize why Yona had been emaciated when she was found. 

Some of the children were never released. When Orochimaru left, he must have left Kabuto as his second command to keep watch over his experiments. But when Kabuto left, it was clear that no one else had been around to take care of the children. Those who were old enough to escape assuredly had; those too young or too weak to follow were left to perish. 

There were some children, who had been perhaps twelve or thirteen when Kabuto had disappeared. Some of them had been well enough along to get themselves out of their cells, or at least they were strong enough to do so. The oldest amongst them were no older than fifteen, and had taken to pushing meager rations through the cell bars of those whom they could not release. 

When Chitose leads them from one end of the hall to the next, Ino counts a total of eighty children including Chitose and the others who were prepared to defend those that were still caged. 

Ino can just about feel the moment when Sakura's breathing changes, and a shift takes place in the room. 

Her wife tugs on her black gloves. The children who have accompanied them jerk backward; Ino is reminded of Orochimaru's history of medical experiments, and wonders how much trauma these children have associated with a movement as innocuous as Sakura's. 

Her wife is not deterred; Sakura looks over at the children around her with a gentle smile on her face. 

"I'm going to release them," she says, voice low and soothing. "I'm going to open up these cages, and you're going to have to help me and my team get them upstairs, okay?"

The children shift warily amongst each other until Chitose takes a step forward. He looks to Sasuke, who says nothing. The boy swallows thickly, but nods. 

"We can take them upstairs to where the barracks are," Chitose says waveringly. He turns his head to all of the older children around him, who nod furtively. Ino makes a note of that, and wonders what authority Chitose has among them that he is listened to despite their collective fear. 

Sakura gently brings her hand down onto Chitose's head of thick black hair and gives it an affectionate rub. Chitose flinches hard under the touch, like he's expecting it to be violent, but Ino knows what it is like to have Sakura's healer's hand on her head. When Chitose is sure Sakura is not attacking him, he looks up at her. 

"Thank you, Chitose-kun," she says. Chitose goes a little red. Ino smiles; she understands that exactly. 

Sakura takes her hand back to herself and places her hands on the middlemost bars of the cell in front of her. Without even the hint of strain, she peels the bars apart wide enough so that the children can get in and out safely. 

Chitose and the others balk at her strength, and yeah, Ino understands that, too. The little girl in the cage is wide eyed and terrified, but Sakura doesn't take a step inside of her cell. Instead, she steps back and Chitose scrambles inside to get the girl to her feet. 

"C'mon Nori-chan," he says, helping her up. "Sasuke-sama is back and he brought his friends to help us." 

"Sasuke-sama?" the little girl whispers. 

She moves with difficulty, Ino catches that first. There's something wrong with her leg, her left leg. When the smell of rot hits her nose, Ino knows why. There's a wound there, something ugly and awful and contorted into hideousness that's been left to infection. She knows she won't be able to tell without an accurate diagnostic jutsu, but there's a likelihood that leg will have to come off.

Which is hideous, because Nori-chan doesn't look any older than six. Maybe seven. 

It goes on like that, Sakura peeling the bars off the cells before Chitose and the older children can squirm inside to release the young prisoners. The older kids hurry the younger ones up the stairs to wherever the barracks are, and a couple of medic nin under Sakura's command follow them. Sasuke stays at the base of the stairs so that each child gets to see him as they're ferried up; he gives them a peculiar kind of strength. Ino sees several of them gain a measure of resolve, or steel themselves when they see the black haired man. 

Sometimes, when Sakura opens a cage, one of the children inside of it is not breathing. One of the medics on their team will enter without one of the older children to attempt resuscitation. Out of the eighty children Ino had initially counted, only seventy are alive by the time they are released. The medic nin take the lifeless bodies to the surface, ferrying them away so that the living children cannot see them. 

Ino had never thought she would have to see the corpses of children, left behind. Discarded like trash. She had known war was hell from living through it. Only now does she understand how incredibly lucky she has been, how privileged. She may have lost her father, and she may have lost Asuma-sensei, but at least she had a clan name. At least she had been able to fight back. 

These children were helpless, and it showed. She marvels at little Yona's bravery, and reminds herself to make a substantial donation to the orphan's fund when they return to the village. 

The older children are all upstairs when Sakura frees the last little one in captivity. He has long dark brown hair that has gone matted towards the ends, and inquisitive green eyes. They are sunken in from lack of food, and his skin is pale from lack of sunshine. His fingers are bloody, and from the scratches along the sides of his cell, Ino can tell why. 

She steps into the opening Sakura has made, and crouches down so that she's eye level with the boy. He curls in on himself in the corner like most of the younger children had, but his green eyes are squinting like he's trying to remember something. 

Ino stays away from him because that's the safer bet, to let him come to her. Sakura waits just behind, scanning the hallway for anyone that might have gotten left behind on accident. They hadn't been able to get very much information out of Yona before she died, but Yamato had let them know about Orochimaru's experiments on children younger than these, on babies only a handful of months old. 

Ino isn't sure how well the test tube children will be holding up about now, and wonders if they have died. If these remaining children look as starved as they do, she has little hope for whatever babies remain. 

"Did you hear Chitose and the others? We're here to help you out. We've gotten everyone else. Now it's just you, little one," Ino says softly.

She gives the little boy a wink, and reaches out her hand. 

"We were saving the best for last."

Something seems to click within the boy, and then his green eyes are filled with tears. He stumbles to his feet. His knees are bony and thin, but his legs carry him across the cell with a sudden burst of energy that Ino knows comes from adrenaline alone. 

The boy bypasses her outstretched arm and throws his arms around her neck. 

"Mama!" he wails. "Mama!"

Ino's head jerks back in surprise, but the little boy is burying his face in her throat and weeping heavily there. Slowly, she brings her arm around the sobbing child, and looks to where Sakura is standing just behind her. She looks just as confused as Ino feels. 

The boy may think she's his mother, but Ino knows instinctively that he's under a great deal of stress. He probably never expected freedom, and now here it is, and here she is, looking like someone he likely hasn't seen in years. It would do more harm than good to tell him she wasn't his mother, at least right now. The way he shook, he'd probably fall asleep soon after expending so much energy running into her and crying. 

It would be best for his health if she told him later. So Ino wraps her arms around the little boy, and rubs soothing circles onto his back. 

"It's okay, little one," she murmurs as he cries. "I've got you. Everything is going to be okay."

With steady feet, Ino stands, and supports the boy's bottom with her arm. He cries loudly into her neck the way only a child can, and Ino soothes him to the best of her ability. 

Over the boy's head, Sakura's face looks sad and grim. 

Ten children dead, seventy in dire need of food and water and sunlight and medical attention. The odds were stacked against these little dying ones. And this war was much different than the one Ino, Sakura, and her comrades had just fought in. 

Ino purses her lips and nods once at Sakura, still soothing the boy in her arms. They leave the cells, and once they are at the top of the stairs to this hideous little hallway, Sakura slams her fist into the low hanging rock carved ceiling above their heads. The boy yelps in her arms, and Ino can feel him wet himself at the sound, but softly she soothes him as he apologizes. 

She can't be mad at him over the fierce swell of satisfaction she feels at seeing that terrible underground prison sealed off forever. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to the angst train lmao 
> 
> comments are food for starving artists xx thank you for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

"These kids won't last ten seconds in a check up in one of Orochimaru's old rooms," Sakura says, arms folded across her chest. 

Sasuke nods, eyes darting over the heads of the smaller children. They keep a respectful distance from him, but all of them are watching him with hungry, excited eyes. 

"There are houses on the surface," he replies, thinking back to the few lucky ones Orochimaru allowed to live above ground. "Cleaning them up might take time."

Sakura sucks her teeth; he recognizes that as her unhappy sound. She was a frequent visitor to his prison cell, considering she was the medic assigned to give him check-ups. Especially his eyes, to make sure they hadn't managed to sear holes into his brain. She sucked her teeth whenever she noticed an old injury that hadn't healed properly, that he had managed to hide from her because he carried himself as if he had never been hurt. 

"I don't know if all of them can make it up all those stairs," Sakura grumbles. "They won't stand to be held, that much I can see in their faces."

Sasuke hums at that, because he knows it's true. If Orochimaru did anything, it was rear devastatingly self sufficient, paranoid young shinobi. Karin was probably the prime example. 

"Then we wait," Sasuke says after a moment. "They're not likely to run, and even though they out number us, they wouldn't try us all in a fight."

Sakura looks at him like he's said something absurd. Sasuke levels the gaze. They were both born into the same society; they had both been child soldiers themselves. Maybe Sakura had been bullied as a child, and maybe Sasuke had suffered the Massacre, but they hadn't been left to fend for themselves for two years, and they never had to starve. 

"Alright," Sakura says, not looking away. Her green eyes bear down into his, and Sasuke has never been more grateful that he has her as a friend, and no longer than an enemy. 

"Alright," she says.

* * *

The green eyed boy sobs himself to sleep, but even as he rests, he won't let go of Ino. Which is unfortunate, considering the fact that he soiled himself while she was holding him. Sakura leaves her wife with the child, and wishes her the best. 

The medic and psych nin that came on this mission with them are doing their best, but the children are largely unresponsive. They watch Sasuke like a hawk, and when he turns their gaze on them, they seem to perk up, even the smallest bit.

While a little boy spits all sorts of curses at a medic that Sakura's trained (her name is Enko, and she's endlessly patient), Sakura crouches down by Chitose, who tracks Sasuke's every move like a hawk. 

"You know," Sakura begins, announcing herself. The boy still flinches; it makes her heart clench. "When I was your age, I had a huge crush on Sasuke-kun, too. So did Ino-pig."

Chitose looks at her, then turns a little bit so she's fully in his field of vision. He still keeps himself open, to run, or to see Sasuke if he should leave the room. 

"Ino-pig?" he asks. 

Sakura points to where the blonde is advising the shinobi under her leadership, still holding the boy who thinks she's his mother. 

"The blonde," Sakura says.

She dips her hand below the high collar of her shirt, and tugs out her necklace. On it, is her corded rose gold wedding band, and a small silver bush clover of the Yamanaka clan sigil. 

"She's my wife now," Sakura says, displaying the charms for Chitose to see. "We always called ourselves rivals for Sasuke-kun, but it turns out we just really liked each other the whole time."

Chitose looks from her to Ino, then back again. The movements are all short darts of his eyes; no other part of him so much as fidgets. Sakura doesn't frown visibly, but she does bite the inside of her cheek. This one was a war baby, through and through. 

She knows that when Naruto takes the hat, he's going to abolish the archaic system of training children from the age of eight to be killers. It was ironic in the first place, the way Senju Tobirama had set up the academy to make the shinobi arts accessible, only for the system to turn on itself to perpetuate the exact thing he and his brother died trying to prevent; more children perishing like their younger siblings. 

Naruto was different, Sakura knew that much. He had Sasuke, and the memory of Neji's death still fresh in his mind. And now that he had seen Yona die, now that he was going to find out the state of the children that remained… Sakura had no doubt that within a fortnight of Naruto's inauguration as Hokage, the academy as they knew it today would cease to exist. 

"Do you all have a crush on Sasuke-kun, too?" Sakura asks, her voice light and purposefully teasing. 

Chitose purses his lips at her, brows furrowing. His ears go a little red, and Sakura feels as though she is in even territory. 

"No," the boy blusters. "Sasuke-sama is … He's our hero!"

That surprises her. Sakura can count on one finger the number of people who think Sasuke is a hero. It's Naruto. That's it. Sakura and Kakashi (and Yamato and Tsunade, and Shizune, and most of the Konoha Eleven, and pretty much anyone who's ever spent more than ten minutes with him) think Sasuke's mostly a dumbass. 

"Oh really?" she asks. 

Chitose nods fervently. 

"Sasuke-sama beat every single Oto shinobi in combat, to prove he was the strongest in Sound Country," Chitose says, eyes blazing not with battle frenzy, but with something like pride. 

"He was!" chirps a girl about Chitose's age.

She's got strawberry blonde hair shaved close to her head; on her scalp are all sorts of twisting contorting seals. Sakura doesn't let the blood drain from her face; she has no idea how this child is going to survive getting those seals taken off of her. 

"That's Kiwa," Chitose murmurs as the girl joins them.

"Sasuke-sama was the strongest shinobi in Sound Country and he proved it," Kiwa adds, eyes shining with adoration. 

"He beat them all in a day without killing any of them," adds one of the older boys, grey haired and violet eyed. 

"That's Taiga," Chitose adds. 

"He didn't even have to use his Sharingan," Kiwa supplies.

Taiga nods, corroborating her story. 

"And when he was done," Taiga says, "he killed Orochimaru."

At the mention of his name alone, the air is sucked out of the room. But instead of fear filling the space, there is only a kind of visceral pride. A blood pride; Sakura would recognize the feeling anywhere. These children, whether they knew it or not, were radiating a kind of killing intent that only came in waves off those who had shed blood they thought they deserved to shed. 

It's clear to her then, that they all see Orochimaru's death as their own personal victory. Sakura doesn't have a hard time seeing why. 

"When he was done," Chitose says, "he started freeing everybody."

"Even Jūgo-san, who was the most dangerous," Kiwa adds enthusiastically. "He let out _everybody_."

Sakura furrows her brows. It's obvious enough to everyone in the room that Sasuke didn't do a perfect job. Taiga sees the way she tenses, and he sticks his hands into the pockets of his loose hanging pants. He's too thin, Sakura notices. They're all too thin. 

"Sasuke-sama didn't know about the babies," Taiga mutters. "Hardly anyone did."

Sakura wants to grab the boy by the shoulders and tell him that he's still a baby himself. 

"There was a lot of confusion when Sasuke-sama killed Orochimaru," Kiwa says, voice going soft and sad. "Some people started rampaging, others just left. Chitose-kun let me out."

"Me, too," Taiga says. 

Sakura turns her attention back to Chitose, their guide to the subterranean complex, the first one to attack, and the first one to recognize Sasuke. He scuffs his bare foot against the ground beneath him. 

"I was Sasuke-sama's swordbearer," Chitose says.

His demeanor changes as soon as he says it, and he puffs up with pride at the admission. 

Swordbearers were - antiquated to say the least. Perhaps in the Warring States Period, it was more common for a shinobi to have an apprentice, or a second, who carried their swords for them, tended to them. Sakura's glance darts to Sasuke; she wonders if having Chitose perform this duty was his idea or Orochimaru's. 

"He let me out," Chitose continues. "I was able to get the older kids out, but the babies - all the keys were - and then everyone else disappeared, and no one could get them out."

The story gets harder and harder for him to tell as he goes on. 

"Chitose-kun," she starts, intending to stop him. 

Chitose shakes his head and continues. 

"We fed the babies. We got food from the cafeteria and brought it to them. We did it for two years. We sent Yona because we were out of food, and the babies were really hungry and we didn't want them to die."

"Chitose-kun," Sakura says a second time, voice gentle but firm. "That's enough. You don't have to say everything at once."

Chitose's lower lip wobbles, and Kiwa and Taiga are noticeably silent. Over their heads, Sakura can see Sasuke's eyes rest on his young swordbearer. Sakura knows in that moment that Sasuke had no idea what he was liberating Otogakure to do once he freed Orochimaru's experiments. He didn't anticipate this happening; young men seeking revenge rarely think of the consequences of their actions. 

"Sasuke-sama was the first person to get out," Kiwa says, speaking up. "He killed Orochimaru and he freed Oto. And we all like and respect him very much."

Sakura turns to the girl; she's the liveliest of them by far. She's likely emboldened to speak because Chitose had been, but Sakura can tell from the looks Kiwa shares with Taiga that they aren't only there for the good conversation. If Sakura makes even one false move against Chitose, she'll have an arm full of rabid fourteen year olds to answer to. 

"So you admire him."

It catches their attention. They look at each other and then back to her, all clearly in agreement with one another. 

"Yes," Taiga replies. "We admire Sasuke-sama very much."

* * *

Because Enko knows better than to interrupt Sakura while she's talking with the children, she approaches Ino. The Yamanaka is very grateful; common sense is hard to come by with most shinobi. Sakura's teammates were proof enough of that. 

"What do you have?" she asks the medic. 

Enko purses her lips, unhappy, but keeps her back to the children so that they can't read her lips. 

"The one called Nori?" she begins. "Gangrene on her left leg. It's gonna have to come off."

Ino sighs. She had been expecting that, but that doesn't mean she has to like it. She and Sakura both had the Godaime's training, and Sakura had hand picked shinobi that had either had been trained by herself or by Shizune. An amputation wouldn't be very difficult with that many capable medic nin around; Sakura had managed to heal both Sasuke and Naruto's arms even though they would have been beyond repair for literally anyone else, other than the Godaime. Ino had no doubt Sakura could amputate Nori's leg by herself as well. 

"How soon?" 

Enko shakes her head. 

"The sooner the better. It's a miracle it's not any worse. As is, she'll lose everything below her knee."

"Sage above and below," Ino mutters, preferring to curse a god she knows exists. 

Enko gives her a sympathetic nod. 

"If we don't act fast, we might lose her whole thigh, too," the medic continues. "She's young, but she's frail. She should be able to bounce back if we get the operation done soon enough."

Ino nods, minutely adjusting her grasp on the boy in her arms. 

"Alright, I'll let Sakura know once she's finished with the others. Anything to report on the rest of the children?"

Enko nods brusquely and pulls out a notepad on which she's scribbled various diagnoses from the children she's interviewed. Ino was grateful to have a medic like Enko on hand; her diagnostic jutsu were so fine, she would pass one over a shinobi without them knowing she had been using chakra at all. She was one of Sakura's trainees, and it showed. 

"Malnourished, the lot of them. Dehydrated, too. Fevers for some. One of them has tuberculosis, Sage only knows how that happened. Respiratory infections. Nori-chan's the worst off, thank goodness."

The fact that she's the worst off physically goes left unsaid. Ino's eyed the young blonde girl with the shaved head, whose scalp is covered in seals. That was beyond their ken, Ino knew, but Tenten might be able to do something about it. If the girl didn't have any relations to any other villages, she would fall under Konoha's jurisdiction. It would make it easier for Tenten to get a look at whatever nonsense was happening on the girl's skull. 

"Right," Ino says. "You're under Sakura's jurisdiction, but she'll probably handle the amputation herself. Take care of the fevers, the infections as best as you can. Careful with feeding them; they'll be ravenous, but they must go slowly. Do your best, they'll be difficult."

Enko clicks her feet together and gives her a professional nod. 

"Yes, Ino-san."

Enzo turns and gets to work. As she goes, the boy in Ino's arms begins to wiggle himself back into waking. Ino curses quietly under her breath, but she travels the length of the barracks until she's just far away enough so that the boy will have some privacy. 

"Mama?" he asks, blinking his green eyes open. "Mama, I had a bad dream."

She rubs a circle onto his back, and tries to figure out how she should tell him the truth. She had hoped he would sleep for longer, but he was a child in an environment that hadn't taken very good care of him. Of course he was a light sleeper, even when he was exhausted. 

The boy looks up at her, then really looks at her. He narrows his eyes, but as soon as his (surprisingly large) well of chakra lashes itself up into rage, it crumples. 

"You're not my mama," he murmurs. 

She shakes her head slowly; the fact that the boy doesn't push her away, or try to throw himself out of her grasp tells her more than enough about his state of mind. 

"My name is Yamanaka Ino," she says. "What's your name?"

The boy has a fistful of her purple blouse in his little hand, and he doesn't look like he's letting go any time soon. She might not be his mother, but she looks like her, and that seems to be enough for him. 

"Midori."

She smiles in what she hopes is a reassuring way. Midori seems indifferent to her expression. 

"Hello, Midori-chan," she replies. "Uchiha Sasuke and I came here with a team from Konohagakure. Your friend Yona found us, and we came to help you."

Midori doesn't seem to care. Not like the other children do. He doesn't perk up at Sasuke's name. He only keeps her shirt bunched up in his fist, and his head pressed against her shoulder. 

"I thought you were my mama," he murmurs. 

Ino heaves a little sigh, and gives the boy a gentle squeeze. 

"Why did you think that Midori-chan?"

He shakes his head, squeezing his eyes tight. 

"Mama had blonde hair and blue eyes and she used to bring all the babies food," he says. "I was one of the oldest babies so I always ate last, and she would always say she was saving the best for last."

"Do you know what happened to her?"

It's a question she doesn't want to ask now, but one she needs an answer to. If Midori's mother was out there, somewhere, that meant he wasn't an orphan, and that he had a chance at being reunited with a family that many of these children probably didn't. 

Orochimaru had been a notorious cradle robber. 

"Sasuke-sama killed her."

The way he says it is so cold, so detached, and yet so full of grief, Ino doesn't know what to do with the information. 

"They told me," Midori says. "The big kids."

"What did they tell you, Midori-chan?" 

The boy huddles closer to her, though Ino knows that if he tried to get any closer, he'd be cuddling against her bones. 

"They said that Sasuke-sama beat all the Oto shinobi in a spar and that after the spar he killed Orochimaru and freed everybody," he begins. "But there were stampedes once he freed everybody because everyone was trying to get out at once and my mama got trampled and she died."

Ino reminds herself that Midori is five, and that the easiest person to blame for his mother's death is Sasuke. He clearly doesn't show a visible aversion to the man, which was lucky. Ino doesn't want to think about the crisis that would be coaching Midori through a visceral fear of the last Uchiha. 

"I know it may be hard to believe now, Midori-chan, but you're safe," she says, murmuring low and soft. "We're going to fix you all up, and give you food, and we're going to find you homes, too, okay? Everything is alright now. Everything is going to get better."

Midori doesn't make a sign to let her know he's heard her. Instead, he pulls back far enough to look her in the face. 

"Can I change my pants, please?"

* * *

 

That same evening, Sakura decides that Nori's leg should come off immediately. When they take the girl away for surgery, Chitose and Kiwa insist on coming with them. Nori panics hard when they take her into one of Orochimaru's old hospital-like rooms, but Chitose and Kiwa have faith in Sasuke, who is there with them. 

Ino stays upstairs with the rest of the children, coaxing them to eat the small meals they had brought for them from Konoha. Sakura puts Nori to sleep with a twitch of her fingers, and Enko feeds a steady pulse of chakra into Nori to keep her vitals steady through the procedure. 

Chitose and Kiwa don't look away as Sakura uses a chakra scalpel to rend dead flesh and bone from Nori's body. Sasuke knows Chitose is not worried; the boy had come with him into battle before. He had seen worse. But it does pass his mind to shield them, despite their placid expressions. Sasuke knows they are only so calm because Nori is asleep for the procedure. 

Despite the facility being empty except for the children for years, Kabuto was a competent medic. Sakura wants for nothing in the room, even though she grimaces to know that Kabuto stocked and supplied it. 

In all, it takes under an hour and a half for them to get Nori's rotting leg off her body. They manage to save most of her knee, which speaks well to her future. Because of Naruto and Sasuke, prosthetics were becoming a field of massive interest. If she was one of the children that came back to Konoha, Sasuke had no doubt she'd have a new leg in no time. Even if she didn't, the Godaime would probably still insist that she have one, bleeding heart that she was. 

Sakura hands him the rotted leg and Sasuke destroys it briefly with Amaterasu. It reeks, but the black flames burn the smell as well. Then there is nothing. Sakura wraps up Nori's nubbin with careful movements. Sasuke is reminded of the time she healed his newly lost arm in the wilds of the Valley of the End. 

"The surgery was a success," Sakura says, not for his benefit, but for Kiwa and Chitose, who did not flinch even once as they watched. 

They had seen Orochimaru do worse. But there is respect in their eyes. Kabuto had only healed to cause more hurt. Sakura is working with their one time liberator; her healing comes at no cost to them. 

They use a left behind stretcher to move Nori back to the upstairs barracks where the rest of the children are eagerly anticipating her return. The remaining seventy children know better than to crowd around. They give Sakura and Enko a wide berth as they bring Nori back to their fold. Taiga is on them though. As soon as they get Nori into one of the low bunks, he's at her side. 

The first night is easier after that. They've proven themselves to the seventy emaciated children. Healing Nori had made those that remained, survivors of Orochimaru's experiments and disappearance, trust the squad of Konoha shinobi. They had said they were there to heal and to help, and now they had proved it.

Sasuke lets out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. It was progress. Something to write home about. Naruto would be happy to hear about a meager step forward.

* * *

She wakes up in a house. Which is strange, because she's never lived in a house. 

Her earliest memories are floating in a green thing, like one giant test tube. When she was three, she was removed from it, and placed in her cell with the other babies, because they were too young to know how to control themselves which made them very dangerous. 

She remembers Midori-chan's mom bringing them meals. She remembers being let out every once in a while, and getting check-ups with mean white haired Yakushi. She remembers his funny tests, how he would stick her with needles, and how strange she felt while he did it and even afterwards. She remembers the riots, and hearing about how Sasuke-sama released everyone. She remembers hoping that whoever he freed would free her, too. 

She remembers how her leg started to feel funny, and then got worse, and worse until she couldn't stand looking at it. She remembers wishing it wasn't attached anymore. 

But she can't remember ever living in a house. 

She tries to push herself upright, but there's a hand at her shoulder stopping her. 

"Not yet," a man says. 

He's black haired and black eyed, and he looks down at her with - with kindness in his eyes. Nori doesn't remember any grown up ever looking at her like that. 

"Okay," she replies. 

The man moves slowly, really slowly, even for a shinobi. Nori knows he's a shinobi from the katana at his hip. He moves a couple of pillows with one hand, and puts them behind her back, so she's propped up. 

"Better?"

She nods, smiling hesitantly at him. No one's ever fluffed pillows for her before. Nori's never really slept on pillows before either, not that she can remember. 

"Yes," she says. "Thank you."

The man nods, and sits down on a chair just a couple of feet from her bed. 

"How are you feeling?"

Nori shrugs. 

"I'm fine. Where are my friends?"

The corners of the man's mouth quirk up a little bit. 

"Taiga is helping make dinner, though I'm sure he'll be in here soon when he senses you're awake."

Nori nods slowly. Ah, that's why nothing makes sense. She's dreaming. Taiga can't cook. He doesn't know how. None of them know how. They've never needed to learn. 

"I'm Hananori," she says, "but everyone calls me Nori. What's your name?"

She might as well be nice to her dream-man if he's going to be nice to her, too. 

The man inclines his head at her in a polite nod, then says, "I'm Sasuke."

Nori's eyebrows rise into her hair. And then suddenly - all at once, she remembers. Chitose - Chitose and Taiga and Kiwa and Reishi and Genkei, they had brought a bunch of strangers down into the babies' room. And a woman with pink hair, she had bent the bars away from the cages and had let them all out. Sasuke-sama - Sasuke-sama had come back for them, just like she always thought he would. And he brought a pink haired woman to help, and a bunch of other shinobi. 

Then, the world stills. Then she notices, that there's no pain in her leg anymore. There isn't even a smell. Abruptly, Nori reaches down for the blankets covering her bottom half (they're yellow, the sheets are bright yellow) and throws them off. 

Her leg is gone. 

No, most of it's still there. She's still got her knee. But everything below that, everything that was gnarled and black and twisted with rot - it's gone. Her brain tells her to wriggle her toes, but Nori knows, she  _knows_ that she doesn't have any left toes anymore. They're gone. And so is her leg. 

"It's very strange," Sasuke says to her, as he grabs his empty sleeve.

He deftly rolls it up with his right hand, and then Nori sees that Uchiha Sasuke is missing his left arm. Just like she's missing her left leg. She feels a little dizzy. She and Uchiha Sasuke are missing limbs on the same side. 

"You'll get used to it soon," he says. "I did."

Nori nods. It's then that she notices she's not in those awful clothes Orochimaru had all the children wear, the ones that were white and showed stains from blood or pee or poop. She's in soft blue now, in a pair of pajama pants that are too long for her, and a shirt that's much too big as well. She wonders who these clothes belong to, and she figures they probably belong to whoever this house belongs to as well. 

"Come," Sasuke says. 

He produces a wheelchair from the side of the bed, carefully pushes down the seat and the footrests. He turns to her, and Nori lets him gently lift her and place her in the seat. He takes the bright yellow blanket and tucks it around her, before he starts wheeling her with one hand out of her room. 

She realizes when they get into the living room that they're still in Oto. There are windows with the blinds pulled back, and though Nori's only seen the surface world a handful of times in her young life, she recognizes the razor grass and the slim angry looking trees. 

But the  _people._

Taiga really is shouting from the kitchen, holding a ladle over his head like he might physically fight Kiwa with it. And there - there's Chitose, lifting his head as they enter the room. He smiles, and oh, oh, Nori can't remember the last time she saw Chitose smile. It had to be years ago, when Sasuke first released them all. 

"How long?" she asks, hands firmly gripping the armrests of the wheelchair. "How long have I been asleep?"

"A couple of days," Sasuke replies, wheeling her further into the living room. 

There's a low table on which a game of cards had been being played. Chitose moves out of the way as Sasuke wheels her towards him. The smell of food cooking makes her stomach growl audibly, but Nori can't even make herself feel embarrassed. 

Her leg is gone, but so is Orochimaru. And so is the base. And the people that she loves, they're - they're whole and alive and unbroken. 

It's no surprise to any of them when she starts sobbing.

* * *

Taiga trips over himself to leave the kitchen to tend to his little sister, and Sasuke takes a step back so they can have their title reunion. 

He crosses the room to the window; outside, the day is sunny and bright. It's mid-afternoon. Yamato had been sent for a handful of days ago to make temporary homes for the children. He'd be back when they were ready to be transported, to draw the house back into the earth. 

Yamato had heard about Orochimaru and the seventy living orphans, and had been more than happy to make the solitary dash to Oto when Naruto told him of Sasuke's news. The children wouldn't sleep well inside the base, Sasuke's note had said, but there are too many of them for one house and they won't stand to be separated. 

One sprawling wooden structure later, the children had settled warily but comfortably. Sakura, Ino, and their teams had pilfered supplies from the smaller homes in the area. Blankets, pajamas, shoes, and non perishable goods were all up for game. 

With a steady looking roof over their heads, most of the children had softened, which was a small miracle. There were still violent flashbacks, nights where someone woke up screaming only to set the entire house off in kind. But Ino and her psych nin worked tirelessly to bring them around. 

Sasuke, a traumatized child himself, knew that healing was ugly and non-linear, and that it took time. He knew getting better when he saw it, and some of these kids - some of them would probably never recover fully from what Orochimaru had done to them. 

But when Sasuke hears a thundering number of feet coming down the hall, he knows full well that Kiwa has probably run to tell the others that Nori is awake. An army of children bolts into the living room, each of them throwing themselves over the other to get a good look at Nori.

Sakura follows shortly behind, eyes narrowed as she assesses Nori's condition from afar; she won't break up such a tender reunion. At least not until she has to.

Taiga and Nori hold each other's hands in a bruising grip, one that reminds Sasuke only the barest bit of the way he used to cling to Itachi. There are still tears in Nori's eyes, but now that the other children have arrived, she's started to relax out of her joy and into a stunned kind of silence. It's clear she had not expected all of her companions to be alive. And yet, here they are.

Sasuke chances a smile. All of them wouldn't recover from Orochimaru. Sasuke knows that he himself has barely recovered from the cursed seal, from the training, and all that came with it.

But these were children younger than he had been, and the young are often resilient. Not everyone would be the same when all of it had been said and done. It was rare for such a full recovery to be made. 

But Sasuke had stared a goddess in the eye and lived after looking down on her. Anything was possible. 


	3. Chapter 3

While they are gone for the first month, Sasuke sends messenger hawks almost twice a week.

His hawks send Sakura and Ino's detailed reports on the physical and emotional health of the children. Sasuke reports on how they behave with each other, with concern about whether or not some of the kids will be able to separate from one another. 

His hawks tell Naruto that some of the children remember their surnames, and a smaller handful still remember their places of origin. Some of them have names that indicate where they belong; 'Kiwa' was a fairly popular girl's name in Wind Country. 

When they rifle through Orochimaru's notes still left in Oto, they discover a good portion of which children are from which region. He kept extensive records, including ones on exactly which experiments he did on which child and to what end. 

Sasuke sends these notes in parcels once Sakura and Ino have them memorized. They make a huge stack of paper on Kakashi's desk, and they make Naruto so angry that steam nearly comes out of his ears. 

There was a boy called Midori, with a strange combination water and earth affinity that enabled him to form crystals. There was a girl named Hananori, and her slightly older brother Taiga, two lost children from the old dragon worshipping peoples of the far north, children who could naturally harden their skin against any attack. There was a boy called Chitose with a snow release kekkei genkai. The Wind Country girl, Kiwa, had senses so acute she could be an Inuzuka, and had seal upon seal upon seal inked onto her forehead to manipulate her abilities.

Seventy children, talented in all sorts of ways, experimented on. Abused. Left alone in the dark when Orochimaru and Kabuto abandoned them. Naruto wants to rip his hair out when he reads about Hananori's amputated leg, how the experiments to deprive her immune system had rendered her kekkei genkai incapable of hardening against the infection that set into her skin.

Preventable losses. Preventable disasters, all of them.

Naruto stays up all night in Kakashi's office with his genin sensei, writing letters to the other kage about the situation. Gaara is the fastest to respond, more than happy to take in the children that were filched from Wind Country. Mei is next, then A, and Kurotsuchi reply in kind. He makes sure that they're all well aware that some of the children won't be keen on leaving their friends behind, and that some might not even want to return to their villages of origin.

Mei, grimly aware of her village's past moniker, asks Kakashi if the children who will not have Kiri as their home despite the change in leadership will be welcomed in Konoha; she does not want to cause any more undue stress to these orphans. When they are ready, if they ever are, they can come to her. 

There's already more open communication between the villages; Ino suggests a long term exposure of the children who remember Kiri's despotic reign. Short visits, then longer ones, all on the children's terms. Mei is one of the few people with a kekkei genkai that survived the purges. She loves her village, but she will not begrudge the children that do not. 

Sasuke writes to him about the children, about the work that he and Ino, Sakura, and their team are doing, and an idea unfurls in Naruto's mind like a bright flower in a snowy field. He runs the idea by Sasuke in a quick note, and receives a nonchalant reply, which is as good as glowing approval coming from his fiancé. 

With Sasuke's written permission, Naruto starts renovating the Uchiha compound into the Yona's House for Children. He ropes in Iruka for administrative reasons, because if anyone knows how to handle emotionally compromised children, it's him. Ino's mother Seiko is the best child psychologist in the village, and she agrees to help at the facility when she doesn't have to see to her own patients. 

Naruto goes about renovating the complex with fifty shadow clones, as well as help from the rest of the Eleven currently in the village. Neji, whose weak heart prevents him from overexerting himself, sees to the set up of all the bedrooms while Kiba enthusiastically goes about scrubbing the place clean with Naruto's clones. Hinata donates a portion of money for clothes for when the children arrive, as well as sheets, pillows, books, and toys. 

Tenten weeds the gardens on the compound; Chouji stocks the kitchens. Shino goes through on pest control, and ushers all unwelcome insect guests out of the compound. Hawks from Gaara assure them that Lee is also making space in the Kazekage residence's thirty some rooms for the children that will be coming to Suna. 

They paint over nearly all of the red and white uchiwa, and replace them with the symbols for all the clans of Konoha. Naruto's Uzushio spiral is present, and so is the Hyūga flame. The Yamanaka bush clover is right alongside the Haruno white circle; all the clans of Konoha, noble or not are painted along the walls. 

When the compound is finished, gleaming and new and ready to be lived in, Naruto feels like he's finally managed to  _do_ something about this whole travesty. 

And it's after that, maybe a handful of days or so, that he starts filling out paperwork to become a foster parent.

* * *

Someone is screaming.

Sakura is upright in a heartbeat, throwing the sheets off the bed, and traveling down the hallway before she can even think. A couple of medics are always doing rounds at night because this happens so frequently, but Sakura is a terribly light sleeper after the war. 

It's a little boy called Reisi. Sakura had managed to remove his cursed seal herself, but his nightmares made him claw at the spot on his throat where it used to be. She makes her way slowly into the room, making sure her footsteps are loud. 

Chitose is already there, peeling Reisi's hands away from his throat, and trying to rock him simultaneously. 

"Chitose-kun," Sakura says, not a wink of sleep to be found in her voice. "Keep his arms down while I fix his throat."

The boy nods quickly, and stops trying to rock the younger boy in favor of keeping his hands away from his throat. Sakura closes the wound with a wipe of her Mystic Palm, then she rubs Reisi's back until his frantic shrieks die down into sobs. 

It's been a month of this. Of the children not knowing how to react to having space, having enough food, to feeling their bodies belong to themselves. They still flinch when one of Sakura's team gets near them. They still travel in troupes of five or more, so they have numbers on any of the grown shinobi should they be attacked. 

Reisi's nightmares are the worst. Midori wets the bed. Nori sometimes wakes up screaming so loud she's hoarse in the morning because she can still feel the pain in her leg despite it being gone. Kiwa has near constant migraines because of the fuinjutsu on her skull. And Chitose, who clearly sees himself as the caretaker to all of these children, seems convinced that he can do just as good a job as Sakura and Ino. 

It's obvious enough to everyone that Chitose's coping method is to take care of others. It's why he always manages to get to the children who are having nightmares before any of the shinobi on rounds do. It's why he lets the other children kick and scratch at him when he wakes them up, and they're convinced they're being attacked, or worse, led away into one of the laboratories in the underground base.

Sakura murmurs a bedtime story in a low voice into Reisi's ear until he's calm again, until his breathing evens out. Chitose stays, and watches her as she tucks Reisi back into bed. He follows her reluctantly back into the hall where one of the shinobi on rotation is waiting for an update of the situation. He only bids her goodnight when he's positive everyone is aware of how to best take care of Reisi. Then he goes back to sleep. 

Sakura returns to her bedroom only to find that Ino has left as well. Another emergency at another part of the house. Sakura rubs her face and quietly slips back into bed. 

She's roused when footsteps that don't belong to Ino enter her bedroom. Sakura is up in a moment, wondering if one of her team needs something. Instead, she finds little Midori, his hand on the doorframe. 

Ino had cut the mats out of his and all the other children's hair about a week ago. Sakura had to sit down and let Ino give her a trim before the oldest kids would let her anywhere near them with a pair of scissors. 

Midori's hair was still long enough to be pulled back in a thick little braid, and he tugs on it now because he's clearly nervous. 

"Sakura-san?" he asks in a small voice. "Are you awake?"

She pushes herself up into a sitting position, and the little boy's shoulders slump in relief. 

"What is it Midori-chan?" she asks. 

He shakes his head, and looks down at his feet. 

"I can't sleep again."

And though she really doesn't want Midori to wet the sheets with her still in them, Sakura knows that his insomnia leaves him alone when he's sharing the bed with someone else. The other children won't let him despite how fiercely they protect one another; Sakura and Ino, foolish as they are, have indulged Midori once or twice over the last month. 

At one point, after inviting Midori into their bed, they had ended up with at least five children sleeping between them. That had been something to write home about. 

"C'mon, Midori-chan," she says, waving him over. "Though it's just me. Ino's out helping one of the others. I know she's your favorite."

Midori shuffles quickly across the wood floor, and scrambles quickly into the bed. Sakura lays back down, and the green eyed boy immediately nuzzles into her side. 

"That's okay," he murmurs, settling himself. "You're my favorite, too."

"Really?" she asks, breath evening out. "I thought all you kids liked Sasuke-kun the best."

Midori wriggles a bit, eyes fluttering shut. 

"No," he says. "You and Ino-mama are the best."

Sakura wakes up a third time when Ino gets back into bed, carefully putting an arm around Midori's middle, so she can hold Sakura as the three of them sleep.

* * *

When the representatives from the hidden villages arrive, the children are shy to say the least. Kankuro makes his puppets dance for the children while Gaara floats them on little disks of sand. Bee has no problem letting the more excitable children use him as a jungle gym. Choujurou uses a suiton mist jutsu to spray the children with cool water when the day gets too hot, and Akatsuchi tells jokes that make even the most reserved little ones roar with laughter. 

It's been a month, but the progress here and now is immeasurable. The children aren't especially comfortable per se, but their guards are as low as they've ever been. At first, they were only comfortable with Sasuke around. After Nori's amputation, they warmed up to Sakura. Midori never leaving Ino's side had made the other children like her as well. 

And now, even though they still move in little packs, they are hastily trusting the adults around them to take care of them. It's leaps and bounds away from where they were, when one word from Chitose would have been enough to lead all seventy of them in a full on attack against shinobi that were only there to help. 

The children don't stick to Sasuke's side anymore. They branch out. Nori sticks close to Sasuke's side like a burr, and that's enough to make Sakura smile. Taiga won't leave Nori alone for a heartbeat, and he bogs Sasuke down with all sorts of questions about Konohagakure. Chitose insists on calming Taiga down, tells him that he's boring Sasuke or that he's too close to Nori's bum leg. They nag each other while Nori laughs at him, and Sasuke tries not to smile. 

When Sakura looks at the way Ino guides Midori over to Gaara's floating sand, she wonders. Kiwa hasn't left Gaara's side since he and his brother arrived, and Sakura eyes the handful of the children with gills, children with blue hair, gravitate towards Choujurou. She watches the black haired, black eyed, children sit at Akatsuchi's knee, rapt in attention. The brown skinned children hold onto Bee's massive biceps as he swings them left and right, their legs kicking at the air. 

Some children mix between the villages; Sakura knows that there are thirty children that will go to Suna, six that will go to Kiri, eleven that will go to Iwa, and nine for Kumo. The rest will be housed in the new orphanage where the Uchiha compound used to stand. 

The Oto orphans were dealing with a kind of PTSD that the other orphans in Konoha weren't really dealing with. The orphans in Konoha after the war had mostly seen a measure of carnage before they were evacuated; some of them had suffered injuries. But the Oto orphans lived war every day for years. Many of the people in Ino's team had volunteered to work on the compound so the children had consistent mental health caretakers. Ino's mother was a good woman, and a damnably good psychologist. The kids would be fine. 

Eventually.

* * *

Even after another month of sporadic visits of shinobi from all the elemental nations, the children still pitch fits when the time comes to be separated. They scream, they cry, the curse, they lash out violently. 

Chitose, sweet boy that he is, he does his best to calm them down. Of the six children of Kiri, he is the only one who insists on going to Konoha. Some of them hate him for it, others don't. Some of the children who actually have distant blood relations in their villages of origin are happy to go.

Kiwa, blessed girl, takes the moving better than most. Tenten's agreed to travel to Suna to see over the removal of the seals on the girl's skull. It prevents the from having to travel overmuch herself, disrupting the way she settles down in Sunagakure.

The rag tag children, whose clans have been decimated, or who belonged to border towns where their families no longer live; the rest of them are taken by Konoha. Midori, Nori, Taiga, and Chitose are among the twenty-four children that return to the village with Sakura, Ino, and Sasuke.

The children are carted off in separate ways in wagons, each of them promising that they'll write to the other despite the fact that many of them don't know how to yet. Sakura sits in the bed of the wagon with the children, telling them stories of how Konoha looks. How the lush forests offer shade from sunlight and snow. How there are always flowers blooming somewhere, even in winter. About the food, and the people, and how much she loves it there. 

They're hesitant, of course they are. But their eyes are on the trees around them, on the dappled sunlight. There are tears from some of them, and that's to be expected. But when they reach the gates of the Konoha, all of them press to the edges of the wagon to see the place that Sakura has told them is home now.

* * *

Chitose doesn't know what to do when he sees the compound.

For one, it's got Yona's name out front on it, and there are people there waiting for them. They're all smiling, and they all have a little gift of some kind in their hands, little wrapped boxes or colorful bags. 

He's so stunned he lets himself be helped out of the wagon. The brown haired man called Yamato, he dissolves the wagon into the earth below them. 

"I'm looking for a Tamaki-kun?" asks one tall woman with dark hair, a box in her hands. 

"I'm looking for a Kaori-chan," calls a different man, one with a shock of white hair and black eyes. 

It goes on like that until all of the children are with a grown up who offers them a present. Chitose watches out of the corner of his eye as Nori gets a stuffed bunny that's about half of her size. Taiga gets a finely carved wooden puzzle box. 

A blond man comes up to him, crouches in front of him with a grin. 

"You're Chitose-kun, right?" he asks. "I'm Naruto."

"Hello, Naruto-san," Chitose responds, doing his best to be polite. 

"Sasuke told me a lot about you," Naruto says. "He and Sakura-chan and I were on a genin team together. He's my fiancé if you can believe it or not."

Chitose's eyes flicker to where Nori is bouncing out of her skin to show her new stuffed rabbit to Sasuke. 

"I heard," Naruto continues, "that you're one of the couple of kids who know how to read. So I got you this."

Naruto hands him a wrapped parcel, and Chitose carefully unwraps it in front of the shinobi. He can't help but like the green wrapping paper with bright orange frogs leaping across it. He's loathe to tear it off, but he does until he's faced with a bright green book.. In red, the spine reads, ' _Tales of an Utterly Gutsy Shinobi'._

"That's my favorite book in the whole world," Naruto says. "A really famous shinobi wrote it. I hope you like it, too, Chitose-kun."

Chitose runs his hands over the book, and he's suddenly aware that this is the first thing he's ever owned. It's his, and only his. It doesn't belong to anyone else. Nobody can borrow it unless he tells them they can. And it's new. The pages are still crisp and stiff and new. 

It's the first, and the best gift he's ever gotten. 

"Thank you, Naruto-san," he says, beaming, holding the book close to his chest. 

* * *

 

"So," Naruto says, coming up to stand near him as he watches the children explore the houses that have been prepared for them on the compound. 

Iruka's has agreed to live on the compound for some time, while other psych shinobi that were part of Ino's team will be under Yamanako Seiko's jurisdiction for their work at Yona's House. 

"Hananori seems fond of you," he says, folding his arms across his chest. 

Sasuke turns his eyes to Naruto, then back to where Nori is making her way up and down the ramps installed near the stairs for while she still needs her crutches. He knows Naruto has already talked to Tsunade about getting the girl a prosthetic made of the Shodaime's cells like the arm that Naruto currently sports. 

"Hm," Sasuke replies. 

"Taiga's a big fan of yours as well," Naruto says, hands in his pockets. "Chitose talks about being your swordbearer whenever I mention our spars."

"Hm."

Sasuke is very well aware of the paperwork that Naruto has filled out since he's been in Oto. He's also well aware of the fact that because his legal status is at that tenuous place between traitor-felon and citizen; it doesn't exactly make him a prime candidate to be a foster or an adoptive parent. 

"You did save the world once," Naruto grumbles, watching the kids shout at each other from their windows. 

"After I tried to destroy it," Sasuke returns. 

Naruto bumps their shoulders together. 

"Most people start with one kid," Sasuke says. "Not three."

"Most people don't chase each other across the planet through three years and a war," Naruto quips. 

Sasuke grunts, and allows Naruto's arm to wrap around his shoulders, tugging him into his side.

"We should wait until they adjust," Sasuke says. The sound of laughter in what used to be the Uchiha compound makes him feel raw on the inside. He knows that even if all his family is cursing him from the Pure Land, Itachi at least, is smiling. 

"And until they like you," he adds. 

Naruto rolls his eyes and leans his weight into Sasuke to knock him off balance. Sasuke is a better shinobi than that, so he takes his fiancé's weight like the mild inconvenience it is. 

"Are you kidding me?" Naruto asks. "I literally talked three people out of making the apocalypse happen."

"Yeah," Sasuke says as Taiga shows the youngest children how his puzzle box works. "And these kids are smarter than them."


	4. Chapter 4

Midori loves his mamas. 

Sakura-mama is really strong and she pushes the best on the swings. Ino-mama looks like his old kaa-san, but Ino-mama tells him stories and braids his hair. He likes Seiko-baa-chan, too. He likes to be in the flower shop with her, because she teaches him what flowers mean.

She helps him make bouquets for Sakura-mama and Ino-mama; he makes ones that say 'good luck' when Sakura-mama has to perform surgeries, or Ino-mama has to go on a mission, and he makes ones that say 'welcome home' when they come back.

He really likes his new name, too. His mamas teach him how to write it; Yamanaka Midori. 

His mamas don't force him to do anything he doesn't want to do. He tells them, a little shyly, that he wants to be a civilian. That he doesn't want to be a shinobi. That he wants to be a botanist, like Seiko-baa-chan. He's scared to say it out loud, but he doesn't want to disappoint them by going to the shinobi academy and failing all of his classes. 

Ino-mama kisses his cheek while Sakura-mama gives his braid a little tug. 

"You can do whatever you want, Midori," Sakura-mama says. "You can be whatever it is you want to be."

"Your baa-chan loves your help around the shop," Ino-mama adds. "Now you can be her official apprentice."

His mamas enroll him into a civilian school, where he learns history and math and science. He's really good in his classes because he likes the way his mama's give him kisses or sweets when he brings home good grades. 

They don't get mad at him when he wets the bed. When he wakes them up at night because it happened again, one of them sluggishly gets out of bed and helps him get the sheets into the washing machine. Then, they help him change into a new pair of pajamas, and they let him sleep in their bed that night. 

He loves that Ino-mama sings while she cooks, and that Sakura-mama will heal the hurt stray birds and kittens he brings home. He loves it when they help him with his homework, or when Sakura-mama cuts up strawberries for a snack while Ino-mama helps him pronounce the names of flowers he's only ever seen in books. 

And he loves how patient and kind and loving they are. Even when he's not at his best. 

\----

He's having a nightmare. One where his first mama is there with a plate full of food, but the bowl isn't full of gruel, it's full of snakes, and all the snakes are white and they're hissing and they're getting bigger until they eat his first mama and they're going to eat him next. 

He digs his hands into the earth beneath him and calls up that strange, awful fire in his belly, and he pulls pale white stones from the ground to impale the snakes. The snakes move forward, avoiding them, until one starts to wrap around him. He claws at his neck, trying to remove the snake, trying to scrape its scales off of its awful white body. 

"Midori."

It's Sakura-mama's voice coming from the snake. He wants to cry. He knows Sakura-mama isn't a snake. She's the one who helped get him away from all the snakes. 

"Midori-chan."

He fights harder, throwing out his legs. He calls on his chakra, the ready well that he never uses, and he throws out his arms. 

The feeling of blood dripping onto his cheek wakes him from his nightmare. 

He's in Sakura-mama's arms. The plants that he keeps by his bedside, the soil in them has hardened, and shot itself outwards, attacking her. They've pierced her arms and grazed her cheek. She's bleeding as she holds him. 

"There you are, Midori-chan," she says. "You're back."

The sob that wrenches its way out of his chest is ugly and awful. He's shaking, and he can't stop shaking. 

"Mama, no," he whimpers, feeling terrible. "Mama, I didn't mean it."

His mama gently rubs his back in slow circles. 

"I know, Midori-chan."

"I hurt you, mama."

"It was an accident," she says softly. 

Ino-mama is behind her, standing in the doorway. There are white crystals reaching for her, too. It occurs to Midori then that he attacked both of them in his sleep before Sakura-mama even got close to him. 

She walked into the sharp stones. She let them pierce her so she could wake him up. 

"I've got you now, Midori-chan," Sakura-mama murmurs. 

Midori, who has a rudimentary understanding of how to mold his chakra despite his fear of using it in combat, carefully flexes it. The crystals recede, leaving Ino-mama safe. They pull slowly out of Sakura-mama, who doesn't even flinch as they go.

"Forever, Midori-chan," Sakura-mama says, gently pulling back so she can look at him.

Her arms and face are bleeding and Midair's hands flutter upwards to assess the damage. He's got apologies pouring out of his lips faster than he can really say them. Sakura-mama takes his hands in hers and kisses his knuckles. 

Ino-mama joins them on Midori's bed. She swipes healing hands over Sakura-mama's wounds. Midori watches the little holes close up until Sakura-mama's arms and cheek look like nothing's changed. 

"I'm sorry," he whimpers again, throat still feeling thick with tears. 

"We know, Midori," Ino-mama soothes, wrapping an arm around his side. "We forgive you."

Sakura-mama gives his hands a gentle squeeze, before she reaches out and gives his braid a gentle tug. 

"You don't have to apologize for any of it. We'll always forgive you. We'll never stop loving you."

It makes him cry again, and his mamas sandwich him between their bodies in a group hug. Sakura-mama starts to tell him a story from how she and Ino-mama first met, and Ino-mama fills in details where Sakura-mama misses them.

After a little while, Midori calms down enough to listen to his mamas tell the story of how they fell in love and how they got married. After a little longer than that, his eyes begin to droop, exhausted from his weeping and from his nightmare. They all go to sleep together in his little bed. And it's squished and cramped, but Midori wouldn't want to be anywhere else. 

\----

It isn't always easy, because nothing ever is. Midori has nightmares, awful nightmares, but they get better with time. He visits Yona's House often and the other Oto orphans that live there. Several of them had moved out, but many of them hadn't. And it's nice to have a group of people who understand what he's dealing with. 

Life goes on because it has to. Midori gets better. When he's old enough, his Ino-mama asks him if he wants to be put on an anti-depressant. He agrees. His Sakura-mama starts bringing him out for morning runs, subtly pushing his diet into a healthier direction. He almost doesn't notice it, but he does because he's incredibly paranoid thanks to his mess of a childhood. 

But they're good changes. The anti-depressants, the morning jogs, his apprenticeship with his grandmother in the flower shop; all of it adds up. And there are still some days when he wakes up in his own home, unsure of where he is and how he got there. And he's ready to fight, to grab the tanto his mothers make sure he keeps by his bed. The one he knows how to use because even though he is not a shinobi, there is still a chance he might be attacked like one. 

There are nights when his dreams are so awful, he wakes up screaming. His mothers are always there. He draws his blade on his Ino-mama; she waits as he shakes until he recognizes her again. There are days when he can't get out of bed, and his Sakura-mama will come home early from work to sit with him until he can make sense of how he feels.

But he has his moms. And he has his clan, all of the Yamanaka at his back with their pale, understanding eyes. There's one distant cousin called Akane, who was rescued from the rubble during the war. It had mangled her left leg beyond repair, and she was mostly confined to a wheelchair. She understood him almost as well as the other Oto orphans did, as his moms did. And maybe in time, they could - be something. 

But for now, Midori is content when days come when his hands don't shake as he cuts the stems of a bouquet beside his grandmother, lightly trading civilian gossip until he has something interesting enough to tell his mothers when he gets home. 

* * *

Lee is really cool, and so is Gaara. They're her dads now, but they don't make her call them her dads, which Kiwa likes. She's old enough to remember her real father; Kabuto had shown her a picture of him. He was more of a sperm donor than anything else, but they had the same face shape and the same color eyes. And she remembers.

Kiwa looks nothing like the Kazekage, or her papa in the green jumpsuit. But they don't mind. Gaara shows her through his greenhouses, teaches her how desert plants survive. And Lee tells her stories about Konoha when she asks about the village her friends are living in. They're kinder than she expects, which should be really sad. But Kiwa's seen a lot for thirteen, and they treat her like an adult because she is one. 

She chalks that up to Suna being a desert place. Kiwa wouldn't know anything about it; her father had been the one taken from Suna. Her mother had been a random Oto woman, chosen for her ability to amplify Kiwa's father's abilities. But from the way Sunagakure stands against desert storms, from the way the sand wears away at anything given enough time, Kiwa knows that in Suna, you're strong because you don't have a choice not to be. 

Not because you're forced, like in Oto. Strength in Suna is acquired through mutual survival. And that makes all the difference. You survive because others care about you and want you to make it. It's extraordinarily different than the environment she was raised in. In Suna, Kiwa flourishes like a prickly pear blossom. At least that's what Lee says.

And some days she does, and some days she doesn't. She adjusts as quickly as she can, desperate to bury memories of Oto underneath memories of Suna and her new dads: the Kazekage and his husband. Sometimes she pushes herself too hard, and she loses herself in flashbacks or trances that don't seem to want to let her go.

But Gaara is always there with a soothing hand on her shoulder, grounding her, reminding her where she is and how she got there. Lee is never far behind with a cup of tea and a sweet cake, gently asking her if she remembered to take her medication that morning.

She's hesitant as all fuck about pills, having seen and felt what they can do first hand, but Kiwa knows Sakura-san prescribed her the anti-whatever pills, so she forces herself to take them and regrets it for weeks when she doesn't. 

Her dads are patient with her because they've got their own war trauma to work through. Sometimes, Kiwa will wake up in the night from awful dreams and she'll go up to the roof only to find Gaara already there, counting the stars. He'll name the constellations to her and she'll repeat them back under her breath as he tells the old myths of how the stars got hung that way in the first place. 

Then when morning breaks, Lee will find them slumped against each other asleep, and will throw one of them over each shoulder and take them back inside for a proper rest. They're good men, Kiwa thinks. And even better dads. 

Temari is a really cool aunt who takes her out flying on her huge battle fan. She points out all the terrifying giant beetles and scorpions, and mentions that some of them can be formed contracts with. It makes Kiwa's eyes widen, and it makes her think about how cool it would be to ride a giant scorpion into battle.

Kankuro is an even cooler uncle, who teaches her how to work chakra strings. He looks shocked as anything when she figures out how to make a little puppet dance. It's the one that looks like a Suna shinobi from the Warring States Period, with dramatic eye make-up and all. She makes it do a cartwheel. Her uncle Kankurou nearly blows a gasket.

He drops his hand on her head, ruffles her short blonde hair, and tells her she's a prodigy. 

Kiwa beams under the praise. She's easier about her head now, doesn't mind it when people touch her. Tenten-san was a Konoha kunoichi, and one of Lee's genin teammates. She's a fuinjutsu master, and she's the one who manages to reverse and destroy all the seals written on Kiwa's skull. 

When they're gone, they realize why the seals had been put on her in the first place. Kiwa's got extra tenketsu on her skull. Like, a lot of them, all over it. She isn't sure how they work, but they let her taste the wind through her ears and smell Gaara with her eyes when he's directly behind her. 

She always knew she had keen senses, but it's like she can hear the whole world when she's just sitting down now that the seals are gone. Gaara sits her down every morning and every night. He teaches her how to meditate, how to draw in her senses, how to shut them off if she has to. 

She becomes a puppeteer, apprenticed under her uncle Kankuro. He and her aunt Temari think it's hilarious; "The next Kazekage will be a puppeteer after all," they say. Kiwa smirks at them, then begs her aunt Temari to teach her how to summon great winds, needles her summons Kamatari to teach her how to wield a scythe.

She becomes a deft user of the kama. She gets a twin pair for her fifteenth birthday, augments their wicked edges with fūton and doton to coat her blades with the sharp sand of her homeland. She roams into the desert by herself and demands an audience with Ishkara, the sage queen of the scorpions.

Kiwa loses, but Ishkara likes her spirit, and Kiwa is granted a contract with the scorpions of Suna who live in the sage region beneath the massive deserts in Wind Country. 

That same year, her dads ask her how she'd feel about having a younger brother. Kiwa slams her hands on the dinner table and asks what took them so long.

Shinki is a year and a half old, but he's a sweet baby. He's adopted, Kiwa knows, just like her. And that warms her heart more than enough to make sure she babysits him whenever their dads need her to.

When Shinki is three and Kiwa is seventeen, her dads ask her how she'd feel about having a second little brother. She places Shinki's little palms on the dinner table and asks them what took them so long.

Metal is obviously biologically Lee's, and that doesn't hurt Kiwa as much as she thought it might've a couple of years ago. Initially, she's jealous. She wonders why she and Shinki aren't enough. They're Suna blood, aren't they?

But the Kazekage clan needs a blood heir one way or another. They never tell Kiwa who Metal's biological mother is, and Kiwa isn't all that sure she wants to know. Despite his black hair and round face, Metal's got the same eye shape as Gaara and Kankurou and Temari. She wonders how that's possible, but she doesn't think too hard about it. 

She grows up, becomes an adult, a chuunin, a jounin, with two dads, an aunt, an uncle, and two baby brothers. It's more than she thought she'd ever have. 

* * *

"Nori, Nori, wake up, you're gonna be late."

Taiga pushes at her shoulder, shoves her a little bit. His little sister huffs in her sleep and rolls over. Taiga presses his lips together, looking around the room. Nori is tidy. Her prosthetic is propped up by the bed, and at her desk chair, her clothes for the day are folded. 

But Taiga has been up for the last twenty minutes, which means Nori has slept through her alarm for the third time this week.

"Nori, get up, come on," he needles, pushing her again. 

She rolls over, grumbling, slapping at his hand in her sleep. Taiga leans back, folding his arms across his chest and narrowing his eyes. 

"You'll miss breakfast."

Nori's eyes snap open. Taiga tries not to groan; he should've tried that in the first place. 

Of course she was only pretending to be asleep. Despite all their years away from Oto, Nori was a light sleeper. She had probably wanted the extra twenty minutes to doze in the warmth of her bed. She probably had a test that day, and that was why she didn't want to get out of bed. 

"C'mon, you brat," he says, sticking out his tongue at her. 

Nori rolls her eyes and pushes herself up until she's sitting. She grabs her prosthetic, wrapped in bandages like their papa's. She fits it against her nubbin, and with a quick burst of chakra she attaches the leg to her knee. She gives it a couple of experimental swings, curling her toes to make sure the artificial and organic pathways are connected properly before she stretches and gets to her feet.

"What's for breakfast?" she asks, grinning at her brother.

Taiga gives her a look.

"Papa cooked."

Nori's eyes glitter.

"Ramen!"

Taiga huffs and leaves her room. Nori had been small for a nine year old, but getting adopted by Naruto-papa had definitely fattened her up.  She was twelve now, coming into a growth spurt, and hungry all the time. 

Their tou-san would look at her while she ate with a little crinkle in his eye, and tell her she had a dragon's appetite. It never failed to make Nori smile. 

Taiga moves through the house, already dressed as Nori goes about getting ready for her day. He scratches the back of his head, double checking his weapons pouches at his hip and thigh. 

When he gets to the dining room, his papa is carefully placing steaming bowls of ramen at the table. Taiga's tou-san doesn't look even remotely impressed, instead chewing on a slightly lumpy onigiri; one Nori had made last night to celebrate his coming home from his mission. 

"Is your sister up?" Sasuke asks. 

Taiga nods, sitting down at his place beside him and picking up his chopsticks. Ramen for breakfast only happened when Naruto-papa was in an exceedingly good mood, which mean it usually was to be expected when tou-san came home from his long missions. 

Taiga takes a deep whip of the bowl of shoyu ramen in front of him, grinning down at it. 

"Thanks, papa," he says, turning his head to where Naruto is bringing another two bowls from the kitchen. 

Chitose is following close behind with a pitcher of water and several glasses. 

"Do you have any plans for the day, Taiga?" Sasuke asks. 

He puts his attention back on his father, and suddenly he's struck with the knowledge that Uchiha Sasuke used to be - well, his hero. Now he's just his father who's gone on missions often, but always sends his messenger hawks with trinkets for all of them. 

Now he's Uchiha Taiga. And his little sister is Uchiha Hananori. Which is so strange. He had wanted to take Sasuke's surname; their fathers had given them the option to pick when they were first adopted. Chitose had been the only one to choose to be an Uzumaki. Despite his obvious predilection for Sasuke, Chitose had latched onto Naruto the moment the man had given Chitose that first book. 

The rest had been history. 

"Hinata-sensei coordinated this group spar with Chouji-sensei's team," he offers. "They want to see if we're ready for our individual jounin examinations."

"Jounin!" Naruto says, his eyebrows rising to his hair. 

Taiga tries not to roll his eyes. His dad is the Nanadaime, of  _course_ he knows that Taiga's up for his Jounin Exam nomination. That is, if his individual assessment goes well. Once that happened, and he had the proper clearance, he could finally approach Sakura-baa about a research proposal he'd been mulling over for months now about further advancing prosthetic designs. 

The Godaime had designed his dad's, and had designed Nori's, but Sakura-baa's modifications had been applied to Nori's rapidly changing prosthetic leg as she grew up. Taiga wanted to figure out how to make a prosthetic that could even grow with the person who needed it, so that nerve endings and chakra pathways didn't have to get so disrupted when a person had to shift from one prosthetic to another when they wore the older one out. 

So of course he wants to make jounin. He only knows he hasn't because Hinata-sensei doesn't think he's ready; he's too self sacrificial in fights. His dragon skin lets him take a lot of damage, and he tends to throw himself on swords meant for his comrades. It'd get him killed if he wasn't careful, and she was trying to break him of the habit of protecting others at the expense of himself.

So, "Jounin," Taiga says, puffing his chest a bit. Because he can do it. He knows he can, if he applies himself a little more. 

"Took you long enough," Chitose teases as he fills each glass with water. 

Taiga huffs while his dad cuffs the back of Chitose's head. 

"Be nice," Naruto admonishes. 

"We can't all be diplomats," Taiga offers, sticking his tongue out at his brother. 

"Speaking of diplomacy," Sasuke says, neatly butting in. "How do the Kiri hopefuls for this year's Chuunin Exams look?"

Chitose shrugs as he sits down, Naruto following not too long after. 

"It's obvious who Mei-sama thinks will pass the exam, but Choujurou-sama is a bit more conservative with his opinions."

"How's your boyfriend?" Nori asks, bounding quickly into the dining room. 

She's dressed for the day, hair neatly brushed. She keeps it short as it had been those years ago when Ino had first cut it. Her hitai-ate is tied around her waist, and she leaps through the room, bunny slippers leading the way. 

"Yeah," their dad says as Nori sidles up to the table. "How is shark-boy?"

Chitose is grinding his teeth the barest bit, trying to hide his blush as he ducks his head. 

"Shizuma is  _fine_ ," he replies. 

"I bet he is," Taiga says, dropping his chin into his hand. "Your neck is a mess. Have you been borrowing Nori's concealer?"

Chitose's hand flies up to his throat and Nori lets out a shout of indignation. 

"That's kunoichi grade!" she says. "I need that to practice hiding wounds!"

Taiga takes a sip of his water, grinning as he puts the cup to his lips. 

"Looks like it's doing its job," he says. 

Chitose throws a spoon at him. Taiga snatches it out of the air and tosses it right back. He's about to throw his chopsticks at his brother, hardening his dragon skin kekkei genkai when their father subtly pulses his chakra. They calm down at once, but they're acutely aware that their father isn't going to hurt them. It was a pulse of chakra, not killing intent. Just enough to make them realize he's still in the room. 

"A nice calm breakfast with my family isn't too much to ask, is it?" Sasuke asks, looking at each of them. 

Naruto gets up and leans bodily across the table, nearly knocking over the nice vase of white daisies settled at the middle of it. 

"It actually is," their dad says, puckering his lips. 

Their father narrows his eyes at their dad but he kisses him anyway. It makes Nori coo because she's twelve and terrible, but Taiga can't hold it against her. He likes it when his dads are affectionate. They're like, wildly superpowered shinobi, two parts of the team that took down a goddess, and two parts of the team that had brought Taiga, his sister, his brother, and all the others out of the darkness in Oto.

And they're his. His dad and his father, his papa and his tou-san. 

"Tou-san," Nori says, always happy to ruin a moment. "Will you help me with my shuriken jutsu?" 

Sasuke looks at her and nods once. 

"Of course," he replies. "I'll be in the village until a new lead comes up."

It nearly makes Taiga stop. He looks at his father, then at Nori, whose eyes are widening. Then, he chances a look at Chitose, who seems just as surprised. Their dad is the only one who looks not particularly thrown. 

It took leads anywhere between minutes and months to pop up. Usually, their father wouldn't get their hopes up with such language. He only mentioned staying until a new lead came up when he knew he was going to be staying in the village for a period longer than a couple of days. 

"A week?" Chitose asks, catching the point a split second before Taiga does. 

Their father shakes his head. 

"Two weeks?" Taiga offers. 

Sasuke shakes his head again, a little smile quirking at the edges of his mouth. 

"Three weeks?" Nori squeaks. 

Their father finishes his rice ball and holds up four fingers. 

"A month!" Taiga shouts. 

Nori slams her hands on the dining room table, standing abruptly. 

"That means you'll be here for the Chuunin Exams!" 

Their father leans back in his chair and says, "It looks that way."

Nori nearly screeches. Meaning, she absolutely screeches. She throws herself out of her chair, around the table, and into their father's arms. Sasuke's hand comes down to ruffle her hair as she squeezes him in her excitement. 

"You're gonna watch me get promoted!" Nori hollers, jumping up and down as she hugs their father. "You and papa will both be there! I have to tell everyone. Oh man, Mirai-sensei's gonna work us ten times as hard when she knows you're gonna be watching tou-san, but I don't even care! Sage's beard,  _you're_ gonna make me train ten times as hard, too! I don't even care!"

From the corner of his eye, Taiga can see his father murmur his 'itadakimasu'. Taiga mimics him, and then Chitose does. Their dad starts eating with a fond look on his face, and his sons do as well. 

"Papa," Taiga says around a mouthful of noodle, Nori still talking their father's ear off. "Did you know how long he'd be home this time?"

Naruto raises an eyebrow at his son and gives him a grin. 

"It was a surprise," he replies jovially. "In perfect time, too. He'll be around for your birthday, and before Chitose leaves for Kiri again."

His birthday. His father hasn't been home for Taiga's birthday in years, but not for lack of trying. He had stayed for a full two years once he and their dad had adopted them. But after that, he had been in and out of the village, home for Nori's birthday but missing Chitose's, or home for Chitose's but missing their dad's. Sometimes he was home for festivals, but more often than not, he wasn't. 

But this time - this time he was home for Taiga's birthday, for Nori's first bid for Chuunin, and he'd be around to see Chitose off at the village gates. 

Taiga slurps a mouthful of noodles and wonders if he can get out of Hinata-sensei's rigorous training regimen, or if he can wiggle a little out of it, so he can spend some time with his father. 

"Don't worry," his dad says, catching his attention. "There's plenty of time."

Taiga eats his breakfast, and believes him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm a SUCKER for a happy ending. this fic started out angsty as hell and turned into marshmallow fluff on top of a s'more. 
> 
> midori is a botanist, kiwa might (will probably) be the next kazekage, chitose is a diplomat to kiri and his boyfriend is a shizuma who isn't a ridiculous murder boy, taiga is gonna make jounin and apprentice under sakura because she's so heckin cool, and nori is a holy terror :-)


End file.
